Trump v. Barbara · ¶352

The Court does not attempt to match this postratification evidence. To the contrary, the Court acknowledges that— at least by the 1880s—the Citizenship Clause was understood to require domicile by the “Government,” the “Executive Branch,” the “State Department,” “scholars,” and “treatises.” Ante, at 14, 21. The Court, though, proposes that this widespread understanding was not evidence of the original public meaning of the Citizenship Clause, but a rebellion against it. Ibid. The scholars, courts, and government officials who held that domicile was required, the Court says, were engaged in a law-reform effort. Their motive, the Court seems to say, was to deny citizenship to Chinese immigrants, especially around “the election of President Cleveland, the first Democrat to hold the office since the Civil War.” Ibid. On this basis, the Court suggests ignoring the considerable…

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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